Emoticons are commonly used to convey emotions in multimedia messaging. Currently, emoticons are limited in form to either letters and punctuation or cartoons. For example, “:)” may be used to convey ‘satisfaction’ or ‘laughter’ and “;p” may be used to convey ‘teasing’. Alternatively, the cartoon “J” may be used to replace “:)” to convey ‘satisfaction’ or ‘laughter’. Cartoon emoticons that convey a variety of emotions, such as happiness, sadness, curiosity, and anger, are available in various shapes and sizes, such as ‘smileys’ and ‘pandas’. Some cartoon emoticons are also animated, such as a cartoon ‘smiley’ that ‘winks’ to suggest ‘teasing’ by transitioning from both eyes open to one eye open and one eye closed. Despite the wide variety of emoticons currently available, the user must choose amongst a limited set, which is often ineffective at conveying the complexity and uniqueness of the user or an emotion of the user. There is, thus, a need in the messaging field for a new and useful method for creating and using video-based icons in the messaging field. This invention provides such a new and useful method.